How does "Random Sample" work?

Phillip_Wild · ‎05-28-2015

I've seen "Random Sample" in Flow steps when you use "Add Choice". But...is this self contained random samples, or is it reducing the amount of leads flowing through as it goes?

As an example:

Choice 1: If Random Sample is 33%, send email A

Choice 2: If Random Sample is 33%, send email B

Default: Send Email C

Would this work? Does the second random sample start afresh from the full amount of leads, or is it smart enough to remove anyone who qualified for Choice 1?

My theory is that it will remove as it goes, which means you would need to adjust the percentages. So if you started with 100 people:

* 33 people qualify for Email A and get that send. 67 remain.

* 33% * 67 = approx 23 people then qualify for Email B and get that send.

* The remaining 100 - (23 + 33) = 44 people will get Email C.

So if you wanted to get three splits of 33% each, the second choice should say 50%.

This is basically just a more difficult way to do an A/B test through that functionality, so I wouldn't necessarily use it like that - but I'd love to know 100% how the functionality works so I can think about how to use it.

Thanks, Phil

Anonymous · ‎05-28-2015

Hi Phillip Wild!

I struggled with this at first too. You have the right idea though.

With the random sample flow step, you'll need to be sure that all choices equal 100. In your example above, Choice A would get 33%, Choice B would get 33% and Choice C would have to get 34%. Also, you will need to add the various sample choices to a static list instead. You are unable to directly send the email in the random sample flow step. Once you add the members of each sample to a list, you create the email send flow step and add the constraint "member of list".

You may want to add a small wait step depending on the size of the send. I typically like to add a 2 minute wait step.

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have questions.

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